Virtuous, a Tame Quantum Novel Read online

  “I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

  “I’m afraid to touch you the way I want to. I’m afraid I’ll get carried away and forget what we agreed to.” He buries his face in the curve of my neck. “You make me so crazy, Natalie.”

  I wrap my arms around him, and discover his entire body is trembling. “Could I touch you?”

  “You can do whatever you want to me, whenever you want.”

  I begin by running my hands over his back, hoping to calm and soothe him. But judging by the way his fingers dig into the muscles of my back, I’m failing spectacularly.

  Bending over him, I kiss his chest. His hands burrow into my hair, his grip causing a bite of pain that has me shuddering with desire. Even in this position, at my mercy, I can feel him fighting to maintain control of himself. I work my way down to his stomach, running my tongue over the sharp outlines of his abdominal muscles.

  “Natalie…”

  “Yes?”

  “Come up here.”

  “I’m enjoying it down here.”

  “Fuck.”

  I smile as I continue to kiss and lick him. I have no idea what I’m doing, but because he seems to be reacting positively, I keep it up until I’m hovering above the waistband of his pajama pants, where the outline of his erection has my full attention. As I try to summon the courage to take the next step, he grasps my hand and places it on top of his hard length.

  “Show me how to touch you,” I say.

  Groaning, he moves his hand and mine up and down, faster and more aggressively than I would’ve done on my own. Then he pushes his pants aside, freeing himself from the fabric.

  God, he’s huge, and I’m immediately intimidated and curious and overwhelmed by the idea of taking him inside me.

  “Christ,” he mutters as our hands move together.

  His skin there is surprisingly soft, and my curiosity grows as he hardens and lengthens before my eyes. I’m curious about things that have terrified me for years. I want to know him in every possible way, and the thought of that would’ve made me sick only a week ago.

  Before I can overthink it to death, I bend over him, push his hand away and take him into my mouth.

  “Motherfucker,” he whispers harshly. “Natalie, you can’t… Ahhh, Jesus.”

  Once again, I haven’t the first idea what I’m doing, but the tight grip he has on my hair tells me I’m doing something right.

  “Use your tongue,” he says.

  I run my tongue around the head. “Like that?”

  “Yes. God, yes. Nat…”

  “Tell me what to do. Show me how.”

  His chest is heaving as he looks down at me. “Open your mouth wider. Take as much as you can.” He curls my hand around the base. “Stroke me at the same time.”

  Despite my best efforts, I can take only about half of him, which has me wondering how I’ll ever accommodate him when we actually have sex.

  Out of nowhere, a flashback surfaces. Of being forced to perform this act. Of being choked and suffocated and…. I pull back from Flynn, covering my mouth to suppress a sob. My chest aches as I try to erase the memories of the past from my present, which has nothing at all to do with that horror.

  Flynn sits up and puts his arms around me. “Breathe, honey. Come on.” He gives me a little shake that rouses me from the swamp of painful memories. “Breathe.”

  I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t ever feel you have to apologize to me for anything.” He gathers me up and arranges me on his lap, my head on his shoulder.

  I deeply resent the tears that roll down my cheeks. I hate that the past still rears its ugly head to remind me I’m broken inside, even when I think I’ve healed. I’m despondent to discover otherwise eight long years later.

  Flynn rocks me gently, his lips soft against my forehead. “Natalie, please don’t cry. Everything is just fine.”

  “No, it isn’t! Don’t you see? If I can’t do that, how will I ever do anything else?”

  “Nat… This is the first time you’ve tried. Maybe it didn’t work this time. Maybe it’ll be okay the next time or the time after.”

  “What if it’s never okay? What if I can’t ever be with you that way?”

  He takes hold of my chin, imploring me to look at him. “I love you. I’m crazy in love with you. We will get there together. One day at a time, until the ghosts from the past have been exorcised and there’s only you and me.”

  It has been a very long time since anyone said those words to me. At first, I can only cry harder as his words fill the empty places inside me.

  “I love you, Natalie. I’ve loved you since the first second you looked up at me from the ground in the park. I’ve loved you since Fluff bit me and since I chased you from the park. And if it takes the rest of our lives, we’ll get there. I have no doubt about that.”

  “You can’t know that.” I wipe away more tears. “You don’t even know what happened to me.”

  “No, I don’t. If you want to tell me, I’ll listen and I’ll hurt and I’ll rage, and absolutely nothing will change for me except I’ll probably love you more than I already do.”

  “I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to ever talk about that again.”

  “Okay.” He kisses my forehead and my nose and then my lips. “The reason I have no doubt we’ll get there is because we’ve already gotten close. What we were doing this time was different, and it triggered a memory for you.”

  “I wanted to do that. I wanted to give you something special.”

  “You give me something special just by being here with me. You give me something special every minute I get to spend with you.”

  “I want to be what you need.”

  “You are, sweetheart. You’re absolutely perfect for me.” He lies back, bringing me with him. His hand slides over my hair. “You’re so strong and resilient. I have total faith in you. Everything is going to be okay.”

  His words lull and calm me. They give me hope.

  “Close your eyes and get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  “Flynn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you, too.”

  His arms tighten around me. “There you go, giving me something special again.”

  Chapter 19

  I hold her as she sleeps, but rest proves elusive for me. I’m overwhelmed with a thousand different emotions that churn through me relentlessly. I’m relieved to have been able to share my feelings with her, and I’m enraged by what she was forced to endure. If the man who hurt her is still alive, I want to find him and kill him with my bare hands.

  In that moment, I acknowledge there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, including commit murder if it would give her the peace she deserves so greatly. I’m also forced to acknowledge that even though I’ve said the words before, I’ve never been truly in love. Not like this, anyway. This is different from anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s deeper and richer.

  I think about some of the lines I’ve delivered in movies while playing a man in love and how silly they seemed to me at the time. Now I look back at them with new perspective, because there’s nothing silly about my feelings for Natalie. And I realize I have a naughty little twenty-pound dog to thank for bringing her into my life. That she could’ve walked right by the park that day and I never would’ve known that everything I ever wanted was passing me by…

  She loves me, too. I’m relieved and tormented by what I’m keeping from her. But what does it matter? If I’m willing to live without some things in order to have others, well, so be it. Life is about compromise and finding middle ground. I can do this for her, or so I tell myself.

  In truth, I honestly don’t know if I can live permanently outside the lifestyle I chose for myself more than a decade ago. But I’m willing to try if it means having a chance with Natalie. After what happened tonight, it’s apparent to me that there’s no way I can share that lifestyle with her.


  And if the choice is to live without the lifestyle or live without her, well, there’s no choice at all. She is essential to me in a way that nothing and no one else has ever been. I will do whatever it takes to make this work with her, even if it means giving up something that has meant a lot to me.

  It won’t be like it was with Val. I was new to the lifestyle then and still testing my own limits. I pushed her too far. I know that now. She exacted her revenge by sleeping with the director of the film we were shooting at the time. I exacted mine by sleeping with her friend. The entire incident was ugly and unfortunate. With hindsight, I can acknowledge my share of the blame for the disaster our marriage became at the end.

  It will be different with Natalie because I already love her more than I ever loved Val, who was ambitious to a fault, willing to stop at nothing to get what she wanted, which was superstardom. She certainly succeeded at that, but at what cost? At least I didn’t sell my soul for my career the way she did for hers.

  I don’t like to think about her or the difficult, humiliating end to our marriage. The divorce got so ugly that I publicly renounced the institution of marriage altogether, a move my mother later told me hurt her deeply. Those were some of the darkest days of my life, and Hayden is right to remind me of how bad it got.

  I have no desire to ever go through anything like that again, which is why I would give up the lifestyle before I’d try to force it on Natalie, who wouldn’t be able to handle it. With her in my arms in the dark of night, a decision is made, and I’m able to relax enough to sleep.

  I’m tortured in my sleep again with erotic dreams that put me in the dungeon with Natalie, where she’s a willing partner in every scenario I dream up. She loves it as much as I do. She loves to be dominated and forced to withhold her pleasure until I give her permission to take it.

  I wake to realize it’s happened again. I’ve dreamed my way to orgasm. I’m sweating and trembling from the sheer power of the connection I’ve found with her in my dreams. Moving carefully, I disentangle myself without waking her.

  For a long time, I sit on the edge of the bed, running my fingers through my hair repeatedly, trying to find some sense in what’s happening. I’m crippled by the fear that this will be my new reality—nightly wet dreams about what I can’t have while the woman of my dreams sleeps in my arms.

  The next day unfolds like something out of a fairy tale that begins with waking up in Flynn’s arms and continues when Addie arrives with hair and makeup people who treat me like a princess for the next couple of hours. They seem to have a vision, so I let them do their thing and try to relax.

  Flynn is on edge about tonight, so I encourage him to go for a long run. He comes back to find my hair in huge rollers that have him laughing as he reaches for his phone.

  “Flynn! No pictures!”

  “Why not? You’re too cute.”

  “No pictures.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  We take lunch out to the pool deck while Addie and the others eat inside.

  “No woman should ever let the man in her life see the prep for an event like this,” I say between bites of the delicious chicken salad Addie had delivered.

  He goes completely still and gives me that intense look that always evokes a strong reaction within me. “Am I the man in your life, Natalie?”

  “I believe you have been since you chased me down last Saturday and insisted I go out with you.”

  His smug grin is full of male satisfaction. “I did do that, didn’t I?”

  “You’ve made a complete nuisance of yourself, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

  “Me, too.” He leans over to kiss me, and one of the curlers smacks against his face, making him laugh. “That’s very sexy, sweetheart.”

  “I’m told the end result will be worth it.”

  “Mmm,” he says against my lips. “I can’t wait.”

  I have never been so dazzled by anyone as I am by Natalie in sexy, slinky black Gucci Couture with her hair flowing down her back in big, sexy curls—and I can only see the back of her. A twinge of fear knots in my gut when I realize the paparazzi are going to eat her up.

  I’ve instructed my publicist, Liza, to give only her first name and no other information about her to anyone who asks—and they’ll be asking. I’ll do whatever I can to protect her privacy, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling like a selfish bastard for wanting her with me so badly on what could be the biggest night of my career.

  When I step into the master bedroom, Addie and Tenley are still fussing over her. “How’s it going in here, ladies?”

  Natalie turns, and I’m left breathless by the sight of her. She’s positively radiant and so fucking beautiful.

  Tenley gives Natalie a careful hug and whispers a few words that leave Natalie smiling.

  “Thanks, Tenley,” I say as she goes past me on her way out.

  “My pleasure. Entirely my pleasure.”

  “You look fantastic,” Addie says to Natalie. “A vision in black. You’ll be on all the best-dressed lists.”

  “Only thanks to you and Tenley and the others.”

  “Have the best time ever.”

  “Thanks again, Addie. For everything.”

  I bestow a warm smile on my assistant as she comes toward me.

  “She’s a keeper,” Addie whispers as she walks past me and out the door.

  Of course I already know that. I’ve known it from the beginning. As I approach her, I can see that her eyes are fairly sparkling from the excitement. “There simply are no words to properly tell you how incredibly beautiful you look.”

  “So do you.” Her hands lay flat upon the lapels of my tuxedo coat.

  “I’m afraid to touch you. You’re a goddess come to life before my very eyes.”

  “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Take a picture for Leah? I promised her I would.”

  “I’d be happy to, but first you need the finishing touches.”

  “What finishing touches?” She turns to consult the mirror. “Tenley said I was all set to go.”

  I remove a blue velvet box from my suit coat pocket and reach around her with it in my hand. “She didn’t know about these finishing touches.”

  “Flynn! What is that?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  “I can’t. My hands are shaking.”

  “Then allow me.”

  She turns to me, watching as I open the box to reveal the elaborate diamond necklace and matching chandelier earrings, compliments of my brother-in-law Hugh, an exclusive Beverly Hills jeweler. “You… Those… Those aren’t real, are they?”

  “Sweetheart…” I laugh at her sweet innocence. “Of course they’re real.”

  Natalie takes a step back. “I can’t wear them. What if I lose them?”

  “You won’t lose them. Now stand still and let me put the necklace on you.”

  “Flynn, seriously… I don’t need this.”

  Could she be more adorable and sweet? “I know you don’t, but I need to give it to you.”

  I secure the necklace and place a kiss on the back of her shoulder, which is bare. “You do the earrings.” I hand them to her and watch her fingers tremble as she puts them on. “Now let me see.”

  Her hands drop, and I admire my handiwork. “Absolutely perfect. I’ll be the envy of every guy there tonight.”

  “This has already been the most exciting day of my life. Thank you.”

  “Thank you. I’m thrilled to have you here with me.”

  “How’re you holding up?”

  “Okay. I guess. I hate that I really want to win this time. That makes me feel so shallow when there are far bigger problems in the world than whether Flynn Godfrey will finally win a major acting award. I have them for producing, but not acting.”

  “How about we put aside all those other problems in the world and give Flynn Godfrey one night to be a self-absorbed movie star who deserves to win big?”
r />   “Well, when you put it that way… Are you all packed up?” I told her earlier that we wouldn’t be returning to the house tonight.

  “Yep. My bag is in your room.”

  “I’ll grab it.”

  “Flynn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The necklace and earrings are lovely. Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure, sweetheart. Be right back.”

  Chapter 20

  All the way into town in the back of a limousine that Flynn assures me he doesn’t own, I’m constantly checking to make sure the priceless necklace is still there. I can’t believe he did that.

  “It’s fine. It’s not going anywhere, and if it does, it’s insured, so don’t worry.”

  “If it’s so valuable it needs to be insured, I will worry.”

  He takes hold of both my hands to stop me from continuing my regular checks of the necklace. “When we get there, the reporters are going to stop me for interviews and general B.S. When they ask me who you are, I’m going to just say you’re my friend Natalie, okay?”

  “Sure, that’s fine.”

  “You are so much more than that to me, but they don’t need to know that. Not yet, anyway. They’ll ask who you’re wearing, and it’s okay to reply, but you can ignore the rest of the questions that’ll fly our way.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be right there with you the whole time, so don’t let it freak you out.”

  “I won’t.” I tug my hands free of his hold and wrap them around his arm, resting my head carefully on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. I’m planning to enjoy every second of it.”

  “Did you send the picture to Leah?”

  “Uh-huh. She wants to see one with you in it, too.”

  “Take a selfie.”

  “Good idea.” I withdraw my phone from the clutch Tenley chose to go with my dress and set up the selfie. “Ready?”

  “Whenever you are.”

  We laugh our way through a series of selfies until we finally get one that doesn’t look awful. I shoot it off to Leah.

  She writes right back. You look amazing and I’ll be watching on TV. Good luck to Flynn!